Hake'sEdStuff

Monday, March 23, 2015

Some blog followers might be interested in the following two articles on the possibility of psychology education researchers learning from physics education researchers [If clicking on any of the URLs below results in code the click on "View"/"Reload Page"]:

Hake, R.R. 2015a. “What Might Psychologists Learn from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Physics?” online as a 246 KB pdf at http://bit.ly/19MnIta ; accepted for publication in the March 2015 issue of the Journal of Teaching and Learning in Psychologyhttp://bit.ly/18RMcA7 . This is a weak version of my article that's been eviscerated by being forced into conformity with the overly prescriptive APA style.

Hake, R.R. 2015b. “What Might Psychologists Learn from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Physics?” online as a 393 KB pdf at http://tinyurl.com/pa2yltu; submitted on 18 Feb 2015 to the Journal of Teaching and Learning in Psychologyhttp://bit.ly/18RMcA7. This is a strong version of my article that was rejected because (a) the editors thought that it was too long, and (b) it failed to adhere to the overly prescriptive dictates of APA Style.

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 10 Oct 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014, “Re: Scientific American Article on Educational Research and Evaluation," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1smsIKA. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion list post “Re: Teaching and Learning” [Hake (2014)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: GS Chandy (2014) in his Math-Teach post titled “Re: Khan Academy 2.0” at http://bit.ly/1tGPvAN wrote: “At its core, teaching has to be about helping the student to learn.”

To which math education guru Robert Hansen responded at http://bit.ly/YYpwJJ: “teaching is about teaching things. That is pedagogy. In an ideal world, every student would be able to learn every thing the teacher teaches. It is only (relatively) recently that teaching took on the role of learning, or better known as remediation, and quite frankly, not only does it suck at it, the more you make teaching about learning, the less you make it about teaching, until such point, it isn't about teaching at all. Or learning.”

For a more informed view of the relationship of teaching to learning see “From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education” [Barr & Tagg (1995)] at http://bit.ly/8XGJPc. They wrote: “A paradigm shift is taking hold in American higher education. In its briefest form, the paradigm that has governed our colleges is this: A college is an institution that exists to provide instruction. Subtly but profoundly we are shifting to a new paradigm: A college is an institution that exists to produce learning. This shift changes everything. It is both needed and wanted.”
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REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 28 Aug 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. "Re: Teaching and Learning" online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/VQx4MP. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

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ABSTRACT: Eric Nelson’s (2014a) post “Piaget's Stages?” of 7 August 2014 on the CLOSED! PhysLrnR archives at http://bit.ly/1orXcKo initiated a thread which on 12 August 07:36-0700 had grown to 23 posts on the PhysLrnR archives at http://bit.ly/nG318r .

[NOTE: To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs to subscribe :-(, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on http://bit.ly/nG318r and then clicking on “Subscribe or Unsubscribe.” If you're busy, then subscribe using the “NOMAIL” option under “Miscellaneous.” Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!]

In one of the 23 posts, now updated and placed online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/Y8ZumO, I point to generally laudatory opinions on Piaget's work by experts Philip Adey, John Anderson, Howard Gardner, Alan Kay, Anton Lawson, Robert Sternberg, Ernst von Glasersfeld, and David Klahr.

In addition, aside from his initializing post, Nelson (2014b,c) made two other contributions at http://bit.ly/1ouGsSQ and http://bit.ly/1uP1Zp7 in which he pointed to the work of Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark (KSC) as the definitive word from cognitive science on pedagogical methods. However, not everyone would agree with Nelson’s tribute to KSC, as I indicated in “Vague Labels for Pedagogical Methods Should Be Supplemented with Operational Definitions and Detailed Descriptions” [Hake (2014b)] at http://bit.ly/1jPnKxo .
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“When we say force is the cause of motion we talk metaphysics, and this definition, if we were content with it, would be absolutely sterile. For a definition to be of any use, it must teach us to measure force; moreover, that suffices; it is not at all necessary that it teach us what force is in itself, nor whether it is the cause or the effect of motion.” - Henri Poincaré (1905)

REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 14 Aug 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. "Piaget's Stages? #2," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/Ya4c3G. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

I conclude that Epstein’s CCI may stimulate reform in calculus education, but, judging from the physics education reform effort, it may take several decades before widespread improvement occurs - see the review “The Impact of Concept Inventories On Physics Education and Its Relevance For Engineering Education” [Hake (2011c)] at http://bit.ly/nmPY8F (8.7 MB).

With over 500 references and over 600 hot links this report can serve as a window into the vast literature relevant to calculus reform.
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REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 11 Aug 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. “Can the Cognitive Impact of Calculus Courses be Enhanced? Updated on Aug 2014 from a Talk at USC on 24 April 2012,” online at http://bit.ly/1B9dyvD.The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

“Mathematics is the gate and key of the sciences. . . .Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or the things of this world. And what is worse, men who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance and so do not seek a remedy.” - Roger Bacon (Opus Majus, bk. 1, ch. 4) http://bit.ly/dzjbWv

“To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.” - Richard Feynman (1965, 1994) in The Character of Physical Lawhttp://amzn.to/19vE4AO

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ABSTRACT: Elizabeth Green, in a NYT Magazine article titled “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?” at http://nyti.ms/1o02vui wrote: “With the Common Core . . . . . .[[ http://www.corestandards.org/, compatible with the reform math education methods]]. . . . teachers are once more being asked to unlearn an old approach and learn an entirely new one, essentially on their own. Training is still weak and infrequent, and principals - who are no more skilled at math than their teachers - remain unprepared to offer support. Textbooks, once again, have received only surface adjustments, despite the shiny Common Core labels that decorate their covers. . . . . Left to their own devices, teachers are once again trying to incorporate new ideas into old scripts, often botching them in the process. . . . . . . No wonder parents and some mathematicians denigrate the reforms as ‘fuzzy math.’ In the warped way untrained teachers interpret them, they are fuzzy.”

Green's article has prompted at least two threads on discussion lists. One initiated by Wayne Bishop on the OPEN! Math-Teach archives at http://bit.ly/eOTrs1. Bishop at http://bit.ly/1Agrtzv wrote: “Other than ‘Americans Stink at Math’, almost everything [Green] says is wrong. Decades-old (century?) math ed mythology.”

Another initiated by John Clement on the CLOSED! July PhysLrnR archives http://bit.ly/WQjkCL. Clement at http://bit.ly/1onL1Nr wrote: (paraphrasing): “Green's very good article is about how the Japanese reformed their math teaching and are now beating us. Their method resembles ‘Interactive Engagement’ methods in Physics Education Research.”
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REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 25 July 2014.]
Hake, R.R. “Elizabeth Green’s ‘Why Do Americans Stink at Math?’ ” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1lERqiv. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion-list post “Assessment of Undergraduate Student Learning” [Hake (2014)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Norman Stahl (2014) of the LrnAsst list has called attention to the AAC&U (2014) report “68 Institutions in Nine States to Pilot New Approach to Learning Outcomes Assessment” at http://bit.ly/1o6Xfsn. The report states (slightly edited):

“ ‘The calls are mounting daily for higher education to be able to show what students can successfully do with their learning,’ said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider. ‘The Multi-State Collaborative is a very important step toward focusing assessment on the best evidence of all: the work students produce in the course of their college studies.’. . . . . . . . . . For more information, see ‘VALUE: Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education’ (AAC&U, 2014b) at http://bit.ly/1pn6s3u; and ‘MSC: A Multi-State Collaborative to Advance Learning Outcomes Assessment’ (SHEEO, 2014) at http://bit.ly/1mhWSXv. . . . . .”

This response with its over 50 references and over 80 hot links can serve as a window into the literature of undergraduate learning assessment. It consists of two parts:

PART I: An expurgated and annotated version of a letter in support of the AAC&U’s assessment of undergraduate learning titled “It's Time to Get Serious About the Right Kind of Assessment” by Daniel F. Sullivan (2014) at http://bit.ly/1mg77Rn. Sullivan is President Emeritus of St. Lawrence University, Senior Advisor to the AAC&U President; and Chair, AAC&U Presidents’ Trust.

PART II: A review of assessments of undergraduate learning prior to the AAC&U effort. Updated and revised from “The Physics Education Reform Effort: A Possible Model for Higher Education?” (Hake, 2006a) at http://bit.ly/9aicfh.
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“What we assess is what we value. We get what we assess, and if we don’t assess it, we won't get it.” - Lauren Resnick [quoted by Grant Wiggins (1990)]

“Physics educators have led the way in developing and using objective tests to compare student learning gains in different types of courses, and chemists, biologists, and others are now developing similar instruments. These tests provide convincing evidence that students assimilate new knowledge more effectively in courses including active, inquiry-based, and collaborative learning, assisted by information technology, than in traditional courses.” - Wood & Gentile (2003)

REFERENCES [URLs shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 16 July 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. “Assessment of Undergraduate Student Learning,” post of 16 Jul 2014 16:40:53-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. Online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1tTx5PF. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Wiggins, G. 1990. “The Truth May Make You Free, But the Test May Keep You Imprisoned: Toward Assessment Worthy of the Liberal Arts,” AAHE Assessment Forum: 17-31; online as a 61 kB pdf at http://bit.ly/1ySgrzV.